On The Map

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Duration

15 minutes

Genre

Factual

Station

Radio 4

Episodes

Episode	Title	First Broadcast	Comments
01	The Map Makers	20100322	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. If a picture paints a thousand words, a map can paint a million. They help us navigate our way through unfamiliar landscapes and cities, entice us into new places and give us a bigger picture of the world we inhabit. Mike considers the maps he first fell in love with as a teenager - Ordnance Survey maps. Mike Parker explores the maps he fell in love with as a teenager - Ordnance Survey maps.
02	Mapping The Metropolis	20100323	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. How do you make sense of a strange city and turn a bewildering maze of streets into a map that's instantly informative to a confused visitor? Mike Parker hits the city streets to find out what makes the ideal map for steering us through the urban jungle. He meets the man who has made it his mission to single-handedly create a new map of Manchester, and discovers how digesting the entire London A to Z makes cabbies' brains bigger. From 2010. Mike Parker finds out what makes the ideal map for steering us through the urban jungle.
03	Motoring Maps	20100324	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. The ultimate in cheap and ubiquitous mapping, there's scarcely a vehicle in the land that doesn't contain a dog-eared road atlas. Road maps and their digital descendent, the sat nav, may guide us efficiently around our nation's highways but they don't tell us much else about the landscape we're speeding through. Mike recalls a bygone age of elegant motoring maps and considers how modern road mapping and its unrelenting emphasis on our motorways and trunk roads has changed our picture of Britain. In exploration of cartography, Mike Parker recalls a bygone age of elegant motoring maps.
04	Social Mapping	20100325	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. There's no more effective way of representing our lives than a map: social and political conditions, health trends and the movements of goods and ideas have far greater impact when they're plotted in multicoloured cartography. Mike asks how society is now being analysed online in cartographic mash-ups and crowd-sourced data. He also discovers how mapping the human condition, its needs and habits, its highs and its lows, goes back to way before the digital age. From 2010.
05	The Lie Of The Land	20100326	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and then there are maps. Borders can be moved and countries expanded, shrunk or even left off the map altogether. We'd like to believe that maps are a purely factual representation of the world with no bias or agenda, but in fact every cartographer decides what to include on their map and what to exclude. Mike Parker discovers how maps can be used as tools of power, politics and propaganda. From 2010.
06	World View	20100329	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. World View. Mike Parker considers the picture that maps and atlases give us of the wider world and our place in it. He discovers how cartographers always have to keep one eye on the map and the other on the news as territorial disputes rage, borders change and new countries emerge. And he visits Jan Morris to look through a collection of maps and atlases accumulated over sixty years of travel writing. From 2010. Cartographers always have to keep one eye on the map and one on new territorial disputes.
07	Off The Map	20100330	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. Off the Map. The first step to success in any military campaign is a good map. During the Second World War, intelligence officers prepared meticulously detailed maps for the D-Day landings using a combination of aerial photography, old tourist guides and holiday snaps. Mike Parker discovers how Germany, and later the Soviet Union, compiled maps of Britain often more detailed than our own. And he visits a Cold War nuclear bunker, one of the many sites that until recently were simply blank spaces on Ordnance Survey maps. From 2010. Mike Parker visits a Cold War military site that was once a blank space on a map.
08	Whose Map Is It Anyway?	20100331	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. Whose Map Is It Anyway? Thanks to Ordnance Survey, the landscape of the British Isles is probably the most comprehensively mapped of any in the world. But pressure is growing for OS to waive their copyright and make their cartographic data free to use for all-comers. Mike Parker asks whether the UK's mapping agency can maintain its hold on the national topography - and its reputation. From 2010. Mike Parker asks if Ordnance Survey can maintain its hold on the national topography.
09	Digital Maps	20100401	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. Digital Maps. Who needs traditional paper maps any more when you can download all the maps you need from the internet? Mike Parker looks at cartography in the digital age and asks whether internet mapping and satellite navigation are actually destroying good map-making and map-reading. From 2010. Mike Parker looks at cartography in the digital age and asks if the paper map can survive.
10	Maps Of The Mind	20100402	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. Maps of the Mind. The most powerful maps aren't found on paper or a computer screen. They're the maps we hold in our memories and imaginations. Mike Parker visits a primary school in his home town to compare the pupils' maps with his own, drawn from childhood recollection. And he takes a trip to Ambridge, home of the Archers, to meet Eddie Grundy and ask him for directions around the village. From 2010. Mike Parker visits Ambridge, home of the Archers, to explore maps of the imagination.

Episodes

Episode	Title	First Broadcast	Comments
01	The Map Makers	20100322	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. If a picture paints a thousand words, a map can paint a million. They help us navigate our way through unfamiliar landscapes and cities, entice us into new places and give us a bigger picture of the world we inhabit. Mike considers the maps he first fell in love with as a teenager - Ordnance Survey maps. Mike Parker explores the maps he fell in love with as a teenager - Ordnance Survey maps.
02	Mapping The Metropolis	20100323	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. How do you make sense of a strange city and turn a bewildering maze of streets into a map that's instantly informative to a confused visitor? Mike Parker hits the city streets to find out what makes the ideal map for steering us through the urban jungle. He meets the man who has made it his mission to single-handedly create a new map of Manchester, and discovers how digesting the entire London A to Z makes cabbies' brains bigger. From 2010. Mike Parker finds out what makes the ideal map for steering us through the urban jungle.
03	Motoring Maps	20100324	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. The ultimate in cheap and ubiquitous mapping, there's scarcely a vehicle in the land that doesn't contain a dog-eared road atlas. Road maps and their digital descendent, the sat nav, may guide us efficiently around our nation's highways but they don't tell us much else about the landscape we're speeding through. Mike recalls a bygone age of elegant motoring maps and considers how modern road mapping and its unrelenting emphasis on our motorways and trunk roads has changed our picture of Britain. In exploration of cartography, Mike Parker recalls a bygone age of elegant motoring maps.
04	Social Mapping	20100325	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. There's no more effective way of representing our lives than a map: social and political conditions, health trends and the movements of goods and ideas have far greater impact when they're plotted in multicoloured cartography. Mike asks how society is now being analysed online in cartographic mash-ups and crowd-sourced data. He also discovers how mapping the human condition, its needs and habits, its highs and its lows, goes back to way before the digital age. From 2010.
05	The Lie Of The Land	20100326	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and then there are maps. Borders can be moved and countries expanded, shrunk or even left off the map altogether. We'd like to believe that maps are a purely factual representation of the world with no bias or agenda, but in fact every cartographer decides what to include on their map and what to exclude. Mike Parker discovers how maps can be used as tools of power, politics and propaganda. From 2010.
06	World View	20100329	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. World View. Mike Parker considers the picture that maps and atlases give us of the wider world and our place in it. He discovers how cartographers always have to keep one eye on the map and the other on the news as territorial disputes rage, borders change and new countries emerge. And he visits Jan Morris to look through a collection of maps and atlases accumulated over sixty years of travel writing. From 2010. Cartographers always have to keep one eye on the map and one on new territorial disputes.
07	Off The Map	20100330	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. Off the Map. The first step to success in any military campaign is a good map. During the Second World War, intelligence officers prepared meticulously detailed maps for the D-Day landings using a combination of aerial photography, old tourist guides and holiday snaps. Mike Parker discovers how Germany, and later the Soviet Union, compiled maps of Britain often more detailed than our own. And he visits a Cold War nuclear bunker, one of the many sites that until recently were simply blank spaces on Ordnance Survey maps. From 2010. Mike Parker visits a Cold War military site that was once a blank space on a map.
08	Whose Map Is It Anyway?	20100331	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. Whose Map Is It Anyway? Thanks to Ordnance Survey, the landscape of the British Isles is probably the most comprehensively mapped of any in the world. But pressure is growing for OS to waive their copyright and make their cartographic data free to use for all-comers. Mike Parker asks whether the UK's mapping agency can maintain its hold on the national topography - and its reputation. From 2010. Mike Parker asks if Ordnance Survey can maintain its hold on the national topography.
09	Digital Maps	20100401	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. Digital Maps. Who needs traditional paper maps any more when you can download all the maps you need from the internet? Mike Parker looks at cartography in the digital age and asks whether internet mapping and satellite navigation are actually destroying good map-making and map-reading. From 2010. Mike Parker looks at cartography in the digital age and asks if the paper map can survive.
10	Maps Of The Mind	20100402	Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. Maps of the Mind. The most powerful maps aren't found on paper or a computer screen. They're the maps we hold in our memories and imaginations. Mike Parker visits a primary school in his home town to compare the pupils' maps with his own, drawn from childhood recollection. And he takes a trip to Ambridge, home of the Archers, to meet Eddie Grundy and ask him for directions around the village. From 2010. Mike Parker visits Ambridge, home of the Archers, to explore maps of the imagination.